Forbes: World's 100 Most Powerful Women

Special Report
The World's 100 Most Powerful Women
Edited by Mary Ellen Egan and Chana R. Schoenberger 08.27.08, 6:00 PM ET Our annual ranking of the most powerful women in the world measures "power" as a composite of public profile--calculated using press mentions--and financial heft. The economic component of the ranking considers job title and past career accomplishments, as well as the amount of money the woman controls.

A chief executive "controls" the revenue of her business, for instance, while a head of state gets the country's gross domestic product. The raw numbers are modified to allow comparisons across financial realms.

For the third year running Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, is the world's most powerful woman. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (overall rank: 28) is the woman with the highest public profile, resulting from the intense media scrutiny of her failed presidential bid.